The Wondrous Formation of Man — A.J. Higgins

Psalm 139 and the Wondrous Formation of Man

Well, thank you again for being here, and we'll just ask you to turn to Psalm 139, the 139th Psalm, and we will read, first of all, in verse number 13, Psalm 139 and verse number 13. David speaking, Thou hast possessed my reins, Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. Now, as mentioned last evening, we are looking at some of the marvelous or wonderful works of God, and we are here reminded in this Psalm that the formation, not just the creation of the universe, but the formation of each individual is one of the wonderful works of God.

Actually, the word for wonderful and the word for marvelous in verse number 14 are actually from the same root. Now, we'll go back and we'll take time to read the entire Psalm, beginning at verse number 1.

O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me, Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising. Thou understandest my thought afar off, Thou compassest my path and my lying down. Thou art acquainted with all my ways, there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether.

Thou hast beset me behind and before, lay Thine hand upon me, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain to it. Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in hell or Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Thy hand shall lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me.

If I say surely, the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be a light about me. Yea, darkness hideth not from Thee. But the night shineth as the day, the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee.

For Thou hast possessed my reign, as Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well.

My substance was not hid from Thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance being yet unperfect, and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them.

How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with Thee. Surely Thou wilt slay the wicked man.

Depart, O God, depart from me therefore, ye bloody men, for they speak against Thee wickedly, and mine enemies take Thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee, and am not I grieve with those that rise up against Thee?

I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

And we trust that God will add His rich blessing to the reading, the public reading of His precious word. Now just a word, a very brief word on Hebrew poetry for just a moment, because that's what we're looking at.

And if you think that's really kind of an extraneous subject, you'd be surprised to know that probably one quarter to one third of your Old Testament is written in Hebrew poetry. Now, it's not poetry as we're accustomed to in the Western world of rhyming and words that are similar and sentences that are the same length.

Hebrew poetry is not a matter of rhyming, but rather balanced thinking, balanced thoughts, and a certain rhythm that develops in the poetry. And what we have in Psalm 139 is indeed Hebrew poetry. You'll notice that it begins and ends with a similar thought.

So it's an inclusive type of thing. It begins with God having searched me, and it ends with the psalmist saying, search me, O God. So searching at the beginning and searching at the end. It begins with the awareness that God knows my thoughts, and He moves to the fact how precious are God's thoughts.

So there's balance in Hebrew poetry that is seen in the psalm that we have before us and in all of the other psalms and poems that we could look at. Much of the prophets, in fact, I think only Haggai and Malachi are devoid of poetry, but all the other prophets are all filled with poetic form and what we would call Hebrew poetry in the original language.

Psalm 139 and the Affirmation of Human Worth

But I want you just to consider briefly with me the psalm that is before us. And in this psalm, we are going to learn a number of things. First of all, there's the affirmation of human worth. The affirmation of human worth.

What gives individuals worth, value? Now, if you think of it, we spend most of our lives trying to give ourselves value. So whether it's possessions or position or power, we struggle to make ourselves significant and to feel like we have some worth, something that makes us valuable.

But really, we are learning from Psalm 139 that there is a conferred worth upon every human being. As a result of being a creature of God's formation, so we have conferred worth, every individual has potential worth because of what Christ could do for that person, and every saved person has redemptive worth redeemed with the blood of Christ.

So we are going to see in this psalm the affirmation of human worth. We will see as well the the implications, the implications of God's omniscience, of his omnipotence and of his omnipresence, the implication of God's greatness, as seen in the psalm before us, something of the emancipation.

Now, that may sound like strange words, but I think we'll see it in this psalm, a freedom from competitiveness and complaining and coveting, as we'll see in the psalm as we consider it. Certainly, we've read already of the adoration that David had for God's mercies, marveling at the fact of God's thoughts towards him.

The result of that is separation from evil. And finally, there is the examination that he makes in the presence of God. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and so on. Now, this psalm is unique in the sense that it divides.

You know, you're always you're always looking at how to divide a psalm, how to divide a chapter. This chapter just divides so perfectly, four sections of six verses each, perfect balance so that in verses one to six, we learn there that God knows us individually.

God knows us individually. When you come to verses seven to 12, we learn there that God knows us inescapably, inescapably. When you come to the next section, verses 13 to 18, you know that God knows us intricately in the womb, everything known to God from from the very moment of, in fact, before conception, God knowing exactly the individual he was bringing into the world in his own time.

And as the chapter ends in the last six verses, God knows us there and he knows us. You could say he knows us incisively. Now, you could look at it another way, because in the first six verses, what you are impressed with is this God's omnipotence, I'm sorry, God's omniscience in those first six verses, God knows everything, the omniscience of God.

But then you go to verses seven to 12 and it's not his omniscience so much, it's his omnipresence. The psalmist can't get away from him. In fact, in one version of the Bible, this psalm is entitled in a reverent way, The Hound of Heaven.

And if you've ever wanted to look up a poem, there's a man that actually wrote a poem about this psalm. Tragically, he was a man who was into drugs, he was into alcohol, his life was a wreck, but he wrote a poem about this psalm called The Hound of Heaven as he sensed God pursuing him in life, God wanting to embrace him and his running from God.

He knew the gospel. And it's very possible that Francis Thomas later was saved. But the idea that he can't get away from God, he's everywhere and he uses those expressions. If I ascend to heaven, if I descend to hell again, Hebrew poetry takes two extremes.

And in those two extremes, it's encompassing every other possibility that men could envision as high as heaven, as low as hell. So there's no place on earth that he could possibly move, that he could escape the penetrating eye of God.

So we have there the omnipresence of God. You come to the next section. It's not now his omniscience. It's not now his omnipresence, but it's his omnipotence. A God who works in the womb and a God who works in the world around us, and he's impressed with the omnipotence of God.

And of course, in the final section, we don't have any omni there, but we do have the sense of a deep reverence for the holiness of God. And we'll look at that. Another way of looking at it is his knowledge is individual.

His presence is inescapable. His power is in working and his purity is impelling, as we'll see as we go through this chapter. So just we'll take these quickly in these sections that we have before us, and they will be practical as well as thrilling for us to consider.

God's Individual Knowledge of Every Person

So it begins in verse number six with God's individual interest in him, Lord, thou has searched me, thou has thou known me, thou knowest my down sitting, my uproar, so that here's a man and he is a very, very conscious.

He is dealing with a God who knows him. God knows his movements. God knows his motives. God knows his meditation. God knows what's in his mouth. God knows the measure of his life. Everything about this man is known to God.

And as you go through it, you certainly think, don't you, of Nathaniel, how knowest thou me? Remember, then, John, chapter one, when the Lord Jesus Christ dealt with Nathaniel there and Nathaniel said, how knowest thou me?

Before, as he sat under the fig tree and the Lord said that he knew all about him, a God who knows all about us and all about our movements. Think of day here. David says that God knows my down sittings and my uprisings.

Think of times that David rose up and David sat. There was an occasion in chapter 17 when we're told that David rose up, left the sheep with someone and went out to meet his brothers. He was rising up.

He was rising up on a day. He hardly could conceive how important a day it was. Yet God knew all about it. God had prepared the man for the day and God prepared the day for the man. He rose up to face Goliath and the lowly shepherd boy of Bethlehem was suddenly catapulted into the limelight of Israel's history.

A day he rose up. There are times he sat. You recall that he sat before the Lord on that day when he when God revealed to him that he would build him a house. David went in and sat before the Lord. He sat in the gate, different places.

David sat. God knew all about it. And God knew all about David's risings up and David's sitting down. And God knew another day that David rose up a tragic day in David's life. When men, when kings went forth to battle, David rose up from off his bed and.

The day ends with a very tragic fall in moral sin for David. God knew all about that. Yet God loved, God cared, God restored. God knows all about us. Now, that can be both a comforting thought and it can be also a very, very searching thought.

That God knows our motives. God knows what's in our mouth. What God God knows what's in our mind, what we meditate on, what we think about all these things. He says, God knows the idea that God has set me behind him before.

And again, poetic language can at times be difficult to grasp its actual significance. But it may suggest that that God knows the the length of my life. He's determined it. He's he's he's before me. He's behind me.

He's encompassed me. He's winnowed my way. He knows all about me, a God who knows all about us and a God who loves us and a God who cares for us regardless of our failures, regardless of our shortcomings.

A God who knows you and knows you individually, that's a staggering reality in a world where most of us are mere numbers, mere checkboxes on some some list. We are known individually to God. And so he reminds us here of a God who has beset him behind and before a God who knows his down sittings and his uprisings.

And in verse 60, he worships such knowledges is too wonderful for me. I'm just overwhelmed with the thought that the great God of heaven knows all about me, knows all about my life, knows all about my needs, knows all about my sorrows and my difficulties.

God knows everything that is pressing it upon me. And yet this God who controls the universe is the God who knows all about me, maybe maybe just take a moment here, maybe someone here and you think that somehow.

Could God actually have an interest in my life? Could God actually have a personal concern about my welfare? Here is a God who has a care and love for each individual, a God who knows us through and through.

God's Inescapable Presence

But then I want you to think about a God whose presence is inescapable. And again, we mention with a shall I flee from my spirit with a shall I flee from my presence? And he brings together these extremes of experience, the heaven for height, the earth for depth.

If he says, if I travel with the light of this, if I travel with the speed of light, I can't outrun God. Night is light to God and there is no escaping the people in the east have an expression. I don't mean the east of this country, the east, the eastern world have an expression that God can see a black ant on a black rock in a black night.

It's the idea that there is no escaping the penetrating, searching eye of God. Place does not hide us from God. I wonder if when David takes up these words, whither shall I flee from my presence? If at first, if at first.

It's because he's conscious of the all seeing eye of God that he's spoken of in the first six verses. A God who is searching and knows all about him and he just wants to flee to hide somehow aware and conscious of how failing, how lacking, how imperfect he is, and yet he realizes he cannot flee from God.

You remember the words, don't you, of of Hagar, Genesis 16, Thou, God, seest me. Actually, the wording there in in Genesis 16 is. An expression really of amazement at the grace of God, the mercy of God, why should the idea is why would you take knowledge and look on me who never looked for you?

And I think each of us can say the same. Why should God have ever looked upon us when we really never looked for God? And his grace and his mercy, a God here who sees all and a God from whom there can be no escape.

There's no place, no distance, no darkness, nothing from which I can no place from which I can hide height and depth. Distance is absolutely meaningless. A God who is overall a God who is omnipresent in his ways.

Actually, thrilling to think that back when I was thinking about this today, I realized that most of you weren't born. Only a few of us were born when this occurred. But it was Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1968, almost 50 years ago, 49 years ago this year.

And on Christmas Eve of 1968, Apollo 8 was circling the moon. In it were three astronauts, Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, Frank Borman. And at that point in time, at that moment in history, that event was televised and it was the most watched telecast in history up to that point in time.

Now it's been surpassed, I'm sure, by Super Bowls and other things. But at that point in time, it was the most televised, most watched event in history. And those three men said, we have a message for everyone back on planet Earth and to the amazement of everyone, they began reading Genesis 1, verses 1 to 10.

It's amazing to think that it was 50 years ago in America, there was a lawsuit. Madeleine Murray, the initial atheist, filed a lawsuit in one of the rare occurrences of judicial wisdom. They ruled that they didn't have any jurisdiction over what happened in space.

So the lawsuit was dismissed. Madeleine Murray O 'Hare was her name. They dismissed the lawsuit. But there were men and what they were saying, in effect, is, you know, we're out here, we're out here around the moon and we can't get away from the God of creation, a God who is inescapable.

We've ascended to the moon and God is still the same God. He's inescapable. So I want to just talk to you for a moment about the God who is inescapable. But I want to talk to you about it from the standpoint of what should give us tremendous encouragement.

Five times in the word of God, God says the same thing. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Now, it's said in slightly different syntax each time, but the message is the same. A God who promises never to leave, never to forsake.

God's Promise to the Pilgrim

The first time is Genesis 28. And it's a man going on a journey. And it's totally unknown what lies ahead, Jacob. He's running from home from the hatred of his brother Esau, he stops at Bethel. He has a vision of a ladder set up from earth to heaven, angels of God ascending and descending and God standing by it.

And it's Bethel, the house of God, and God promises, I will not leave thee nor forsake thee until I have done that which I've spoken to the of God's presence. To a pilgrim going into an unknown territory.

Maybe there's some here and there is an unknown path ahead, you've never gone that way before. It's totally new. Totally uncharted waters, if we could call it that. And you just wonder how, how will we make it through?

God's promise is still the same to pilgrims traveling life's pathway. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. The second time that that God uses that word, the people of God are in the plains of Moab.

They're about to pass over Jordan to go into a land to possess a land. There are there are battles to be fought, enemies to be faced, cities to be brought down, walls to be brought down. And God says to his people in Deuteronomy, chapter 31, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.

So there are battles in life to be fought. There are walls to be brought down. There are rivers to be crossed. There are enemies to be confronted. God says, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Tremendous encouragement as we think of the battles that we have to fight.

Some have battles with health, some have battles with opposition at work, some have battles that perhaps their character is unknown to us. The battle of loneliness. Not much joy in going home to an empty apartment to close the door and no one else, no one is there to greet you.

God's Presence in Leadership

Battles that have to be fought. Joshua, chapter one, now his same same period of time, but now it's to a leader. It's the Joshua. Moses is dead. All the help of a previous generation has been taken away.

In one year now, I don't know if you ever impression, you know, we read we read things and they're they're separated by so many chapters that at times we we don't really bring them together. But in one year's time, Israel lost Aaron, Miriam and Moses.

We would have thought, Lord, wait a minute, this is the big year. This is the year we're going over Jordan into the land. If we ever needed these people, it's now. God took Aaron away, took Miriam away, then he took Moses away.

And here is Joshua. I mean, just just put yourself in Joshua's shoes for a minute. All the great heroes of the past are suddenly gone. And there you are, a relatively young man. And you're given the tremendous responsibility, taking the people of God over Jordan, claiming the land, dividing the land, establishing the land.

What a what a fearful place to be in. And yet to a young man who had to assume leadership upon whom the burden of leading the people of God had fallen, God said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.

I'm hesitating because I don't know whether it's wise to use personal personal illustrations, but just just bear with me. Give me a stranger's pardon if it's inappropriate. I mentioned to someone that in one year's time we lost all of the overseers in our assembly, either through death, one moved away, one went into a old people's home, and we lost all of our overseers within one year's time.

And suddenly upon just a few of us who are younger, responsibility, I won't say fell, it crushed us really came down upon us like a ton of bricks. And I can still almost take you to the spot. We left that house.

We moved a few years ago after 40 years in the same house. But I can take you to the spot where I was walking up the steps, going up to my study. And as a young man in my 40s, the thought came to me, why would anyone ever listen to me?

And it suddenly came to me with tremendous encouragement. It's not me. It's the word of God. That's what we have. That's what we have as in leadership to give and to guide the people of God with. It's not some inherent wisdom or experience.

I mean, experience is wonderful. And thank God for gray haired men that lead the people of God. But it is the word of God in the end. And it is God with us through his word that enables us to for leadership and enables us for guidance, enables us to to carry the people of God over Jordan as Joshua had to do.

What an encouragement it must have been to Joshua as he stands alone in in Joshua chapter one, facing the river, facing the walls, facing the enemy in the in the land and aware that Moses was gone. In fact, you remember how Joshua one begins.

Moses, my servant, is dead. I mean, Joshua knew that why I impressed it upon him again, because while Moses is dead, God is very much alive. God is very much with him. What a tremendous encouragement for for leadership to realize that God has promised leaders.

I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. The fourth time that that occurs in the word of God, it's now David speaking to Solomon. First Chronicles 28. And David is giving Solomon the charge to build for God.

So now it's not so much a pilgrim sojourning, and it is not now a people who are going over into another land or a leader about to lead the people of God. But now it's a man building for God. And in First Chronicles 28, David reminds his son Solomon that when it comes to building for God, you can depend upon this.

If you're building for God, God will be with you. He will not forsake thee. He will be with you. God with us as we build. Now, building is hard work. Building is slow, building takes a lot of toil. And if we are going to build for God locally, it is going to mean work, sacrifice.

Christian Sacrifice and Faithful Service

You recall, don't you? The epistle to the Hebrews, the epistle to the Hebrews stresses above, I should say, above everything else. But one of the great things that stresses is this. No more sacrifices.

One sacrifice forever. By one sacrifice, he is perfected forever. This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever. Once in the once in the end of the age, he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

He offered himself without spot to God. So time and again, Hebrews is stressing, don't go back to the sacrifices of the temple. One sacrifice has satisfied God. There are no more sacrifices to be offered.

But then he comes to chapter 13. And he says. To do good and communicate, forget not. For with such. Sacrifices. So there are Christian sacrifices, he links together the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name, so our worship is a sacrifice and our service should be a sacrifice.

Now, a sacrifice means it's costing me something. My worship should cost me something. You say, how can worship cost something? Well, if I'm going to have material to worship with, I don't mean a sermon and I've got to have deep thoughts from the offerings every time I get up on the Lord's Day morning.

But if I'm going to have something to offer in worship. I'm going to have to glean it from the word of God. It's going to take time, my service is going to have to be sacrificial. Things I could legitimately be doing.

But to serve God, I have put some of those things aside. We're not talking about sinful things. I mean, it's the norm. I mean, it's a given that when a person is saved, that the sinful things are put aside.

But then there are things that are very legitimate that sometimes have to be put aside so that Christianity is not a matter of choosing between the good and the bad. It's a matter of choosing between the good and the better.

There are better things, more vital things for us to be occupied with so that our service is a sacrifice. Building for God is costly business. It may cost financially as well, but it's going to cost it is a sacrifice that is acceptable, well, pleasing to God.

So God is with builders. Anyone here interested in building up the assembly, building up the Sunday school, building up in some way the gospel work? You have God's promise. God promises to be with those who are building for him.

You have that, don't you? The book of Haggai, go up to the mountain, bring wood, build my house, and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified. God, his presence with builders, finally, Hebrew chapter 13, the fifth and final occurrence, the only one in our New Testament where we are reminded that God's presence is inescapable.

God says to a people who are being persecuted, to a people who are being disowned, cast out, vilified by their Jewish friends and family. He says, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee so that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper.

I will not fear what man shall do unto me. He says in your inventory, as you take inventory in life. You may not have all the riches that your Jewish neighbors have, you may not have all that others have, but you can add to your inventory list this.

God has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee so we may boldly say the Lord is my helper. So we're reminded there that to a people oppressed, a people who are being afflicted, God says, I will never leave thee.

Family may leave, friends may leave, God will never leave. There's young, young family, young girls up in Manitoba. A young girl, once had been on the Hutterite colony, had gotten saved, wanted to be baptized.

It was OK when they said they were saved. But when they wanted to be baptized, it was getting a little too uncomfortable for the parents. And as that one young lady went out to be baptized, her father said to her, if you go out and get baptized, that means you don't love me.

She said, Father, I love you dearly, but I love Jesus more. Meant she had to leave home. Meant that for a period of time, family forsook her. Now, it doesn't always end so nicely as this, but her family got saved because of faithful testimony.

Doesn't always end with a nice happy ending like that. There are many that know what it is to be cast out. I don't know if any of you are aware of the Amish families that have formed an assembly in a place called Crandon, Virginia.

I was reminded recently that during a meeting, someone gave out that hymn, What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. And as they were standing and singing. The person who was there related to me that when they got to that last verse, the singing stopped and the tears began.

Do thy friends despise, forsake thee, take it to the Lord in prayer. They had been shunned, weren't allowed back in the homes of parents, totally disowned by their Amish families because of being saved and baptized and gathered to the Lord's name.

And yet to people like that, the presence of God is much more real, I think, than it is to most of us who have been nurtured and brought up and living amongst those who honor the name of the Lord Jesus, his presence for those that know loss, that knows that know what it is to be cut off from family and loved ones, his presence, his omnipresence, very real, very precious, very genuine.

God's Intricate Work in the Womb

But then there is not just his omnipresence, but there is his power that God knows us not only individually, not only inescapably, but God knows us intricately. Look at what he says from verses 13 to 18, and we'll have to move quickly through these.

He speaks here of a God who knows him personally, thou hast possessed my reigns. The idea there is may carry the thought that God had total control over this person even prior to the time he came into the world.

God possessed his reigns. God controlling him. And God knew him prenatally as well, not just personally, but prenatally. I will. He says there, possess my reigns, covered me in my mother's womb. Let me just get to what I want to get to, because to go through all of these individually will take us more time than we can.

I want to talk to you, first of all, about a God who. Gave you and gave me. Speaks here of our members, speaks here about all our members being written in his book, speaks here being curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, that's in his mother's womb, speaks of being made in secret, curiously wrought and so on.

The idea there is the the intricate weaving. That you have back in the book of Exodus as they weave together the curtains, the idea is that God blended you as a person, God gave you in the womb all the personality traits he intended to give you.

So that God made us each now, I'm not speaking about our weaknesses, our sins, our infirmities, what I am saying is that God made you the person you are and there is no reason to wish you were someone else.

It is God who made you the way you are. Yes, I would long to have the the photographic memory of some people I know. I would long to have the oratorical skills of some people I know. I would long to have the personality and the the affability and the social graces that some people know.

I would long to to have the courage that some people have. But God made me who I am. And so rather than coveting someone else's personality, someone else's unique traits to be, first of all, content with the person God made me, that may sound strange, but the Christian life has this very, very strange tension that I must be content with who I am.

And yet I'm not content with who I am. Now, you say you just contradicted yourself. No, I didn't. I am content. With the person God made. But I would like to maximize, I would like to be the very best I could be with all of the natural abilities.

Now, we're not even speaking yet of spiritual capability, all the natural abilities. God, I would like to be the best I can be with what God has given me. So there is then this vital need for for contentment in that sense, content with how God made me.

He has embroidered me. He has. He has woven together strands, personality traits. He has made me the person I am. And that is all God's. It began in the womb. It began even before I saw the light of day.

He gave you a certain measure of intelligence. He gave you a certain measure of different qualities of personality. Maybe I should just separate two things, personality and character. Character is the sum of my moral virtues.

Personality is a sum of my emotional, I think, virtues or qualities. Every believer should have the same character. We all should be Christlike in our character. But every believer has a unique personality.

God made us uniquely, he made us different. And I need to be content with who I am, not coveting this person's personality, not sitting back, wishing I could preach like that man could preach, not wishing I were someone else, but just freed from all sense of having to be someone else seeking to, when I say be myself, what I mean is not not as some people say, well, this is just the way I am.

You have to put up with me with all my failures, all my sins. I get angry. You have to put up with it. I have a bad temper. You've got to put up with it. I like to tell lies. You have to put up with it.

No, we're not speaking of those types. We're speaking about the sum total of personality traits that God has given me. And I'm content with that. But I am not content in the sense that I'm striving to be more and more what I ought to be.

But then there's also contentment with the gift he has given with whatever ability he has given me to serve him, to be content with that. But again, not content. Whatever gift he has given me, I would like, again, to maximize it, to use it to the very best of my ability for the greatest honor and glory of Christ that I can possibly do.

Faithfulness with Spiritual Gifts

Content and yet not content, not coveting another man's spiritual gift. Why do we covet someone else's gift? Why is it that I would like to preach like my brother? Why is it that you would like to be able to to teach Sunday school like someone else does?

Or why was it you would love to be able to open a Bible reading like some of the older men do? And why is that? Well, on the negative side, it could be because we want prominence. But let's take it at the very best for just a moment.

We'll put the best coating on it. We can put on it that we would like to be more useful for God and have have a greater reward at the judgment seat of Christ. But you see, that just reveals our faulty thinking.

God does not reward gift. Gift is gift, something God gave us. What God does reward is faithfulness with the gift I've been given. Now, what that means is this. If you're teaching a Sunday school class and you are doing it to the very best of your ability, faithfully giving everything you have to that Sunday school class.